December 8 @ 7:30pm – December 9 @ 2:00pm, 2018 Steven Schick, conductor Florence Price Violin Concerto No. 2 Qing Qing Wang Between Clouds and Streams NEE COMMISSION G.F. Handel (Mozart arr.) Messiah Soloists: Danielle Talamentes, soprano; Mindy Chu, mezzo-soprano; Derek Chester, tenor; Kerry Wilkerson, bass-baritone; David Buckley, violin The December concerts tease our sense of memory. We know Messiah very well, but few know that Mozart re-scored Handel’s Messiah for a much larger orchestra, making our performance an “often-heard rarity.” Co-concertmaster David Buckley is soloist in the Second Violin Concerto of Florence Price, a prolific African-American composer that made her long career in Chicago, where her music was championed by the Chicago Symphony in the 1930s. Our collective musical memory is intimately combined with African-American music. Let’s always remember that. And let’s remember that we are a nation of immigrants, as we celebrate with the stunning music of Chinese-American composer Qing Qing Wang in the 2018 Thomas Nee Commission.